


A Hunter's Path

by arktus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Feelings, M/M, some kind of a bromance I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 23:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20199889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arktus/pseuds/arktus
Summary: Soulmate-AU: when a child is eight years old, the first words that he'll hear from his soulmate appear on his skin.“Markings,” Deshanna says, “are a gift from Elgar'nan, the Father of everything. For us to never be alone.”Mahanon believes her.





	A Hunter's Path

Mahanon likes simple pleasures: the taste of rabbit meat on the stake, the smell of leather armor, the whistle of an arrow slicing through the air.

Mahanon is fast. Faster than most children of his age, faster than a frightened halla. And strong. He hasn't come of age yet, but he already knows which Vallaslin he'll choose — of Andruil, the Huntress.

He never cries when he suddenly gets a bruise, and he doesn't like when the Keeper calls him _da’len_. Mahanon never cries or even screams, only stubbornly presses his lips together until they become white: how will he get Vallaslin, if he whimpers like a wounded fox? That's how he's calming himself now, resting his bare foot on the roots of a wide oak.

“Markings,” Deshanna says, “are a gift from Elgar'nan, the Father of everything. For us to never be alone.”

Mahanon believes her. He believes her, but the pain in his chest echoes into his ears, and all he can do is stubbornly clench his teeth, so that neither sound nor rustle could escape from his mouth. This is a test, he says to himself, that must be passed.

“Don't cry, _da’len_. It won't last forever.”

The Keeper's palm — dry and cool — removes his wet hair from his forehead. Mahanon wants to snap at her and say that he wasn't going to cry, but instead he exhaustedly rests his back on a rough tree trunk. He wants to ask her: what exactly is not forever? Pain or the marking? If it's the first, then it’s good, but if it's the second... He wouldn’t want another one.

No, he wouldn't, Mahanon thinks, examining curving sharp letters in a shard of a mirror.

_“It seems you have the key to our salvation,”_ they say.

What kind of salvation and what kind of key? He has so many questions, and even more assumptions about who could say that. His lips are moving while he's listing the names of everyone he knows, but in the end it doesn't result in anything. Imagination draws him pictures in which he brings a deer to a starving clan or leads everyone to a fresh stream and someone without a face gratefully drinks ice-cold water from his palms.

“You have the key to our salvation,” this “someone” says, and Mahanon feels a strange warmth in his chest.

“Okay,” he thinks. “We'll see.”

Deshanna teaches that the markings were created because Elgar'nan loved his children. At first, Mahanon accepts this as the truth, but as he's getting older, he begins to notice. He notices that the markings in clan aren’t the same for everyone. He notices that someone has two of them, someone has three, and someone has none even in their thirties.

Mahanon doesn't want to be dishonest, but it gradually becomes harder and harder for him to believe. If Elgar'nan really didn’t want them to be alone, then why is Deshanna herself still alone?

Time passes, his skin darkens, caressed by the sun, arms and legs grow stronger, and he never becomes anyone's salvation. And he still doesn't have any kind of a key — just a bow. It worries him a bit, but Mahanon was always way too stubborn to show the concern.

He thinks that even if no one ever drinks crystal clear water from his palms, it doesn’t matter as long as he has the clan. His arrows fly fast, and he is still strong — and that's what counts.

Eventually, Mahanon forgets the stories of Deshanna, disturbing him, and how sharp the letters on the left side of his chest look.

He seems to be sleeping, immersed in an ancient dream, until...

_“It seems you have the key to our salvation.”_

In the bustle of a battle that had barely ended, Mahanon is breathing heavily. The mark on his hand pulsates with a strange light, and it looks so surreal that to him who has never had any business with magic it seems creepy.

“What did you do?” he asks.

He speaks to an elf, but it doesn't give him the usual sense of calmness. Mahanon doesn't know him, this Elven is neither from a city, nor he's a dalish.

“Me? Nothing. The mark on your hand did it.”

Mahanon sniffs carefully: the elf smells faintly of ambergris and dried cloves mixed with something else. The corners of his lips are lifting slightly, but it's probably nothing than a game of imagination.

“My name is Solas. Glad you survived.”

The anxiety that flares up for a moment makes no sense to Mahanon until the mark on his chest begins to ache.

He didn't imagine it that way.

He expected that he would shoot the fastest deer in the forest, find the remains of an ancient city, lead the clan to the cleanest stream, and someone would definitely drink cristal clear water from his hands.

_You seem to have the key to our salvation._

And for that matter, Mahanon always thought that it would be a woman. It turns out that Elgar'nan is such a jokester.

On the face of this Elven — Solas is his name — there is not even a shadow of recognition.

“Maybe I misunderstood everything,” Mahanon thinks. “It must be some kind of mistake.”

He briefly watches him, weighing the shades of reactions, but all he gets are plain half-smiles and a calm gaze in Solas' almond-shaped eyes.  
  
Solas doesn't have his marking — Mahanon soon realizes, and it gets him more than he expected. He had long been convinced that the gift of Elgar'nan had bypassed him, and now he has no idea what to do with his suddenly acquired _elgar_.

“You're still so young, _da'len_,” Deshanna would have said if she had been here.

Mahanon frowns at the mere thought, as if he had tasted a lemon, but deep down he understands that this invisible Deshanna in his head is right: he never thought that everything would be like that. Mahanon decides to do what he knows best, until he gets answers to questions that he didn't ask: to frown and do what is required of him.

Mahanon doesn't like magic: he respects it, as he respected Deshanna, as he respects any power, but at the same time he is afraid. He understands Sera well with her fear of the Fade and he secretly feels calm that both Dorian, and Solas, and even Madame de Fer are fighting on their side. It's easier to control what's close.

Solas doesn't seem to approve of his consern. As a result, they argue a lot: Mahanon prefers not to use magic where he can use arrows, Solas considers this to be stupid prejudice. He reacts to all Mahanon's annoyed remarks with stinging silence and restrained mockery, and Mahanon is furious. He is so furious that he almost has no time left for surprise. Solas is his soul, his elgar, shouldn't they get along at least a little better?

This continues until Solas comes into his dreams.

“Why are you so afraid?” he asks insistently.

Mahanon doesn't know how to reply, except: "Why are you not?"

Here, in the Fade, Solas finally looks like he's in his place. The feeling of his alienness, dissimilarity, which didn't leave Mahanon from the moment they met, disappears.

“Magic is dangerous,” he answers.

Solas nods in agreement.

“In inept hands, yes.”

Before Mahanon can feel the triumph, he continues:

“Do I look like an inept?”

Solas doesn't mention either Dorian or Madame de Fer; he speaks about himself. Such frankness confuses Mahanon, but in fact he understands what’s what.

Mahanon wakes up with a persistent feeling of being scolded. This makes him angry, but, oddly enough, has a certain effect: gradually he relaxes and no longer expects a spell from the back. Fighting becomes much easier.

Solas continues to come into his dreams. He talks about the Fade, about the mark on Mahanon's hand, about magic, about ancient elves and elven gods. Although Mahanon doesn't understand why he needs the stories about magic, it is interesting to hear about his people.

He has stopped thinking about _the marking_ long time ago, and now he's just enjoying the fact that he can learn a little about the time when the elves were still _the elves_. At some point, Mahanon suddenly realizes that he finally found what he lacked so much all this time: a friend. Solas slowly becomes his friend, and the thought suddenly aches in his heart. He is curious: what could their life be like if they were in the same clan since childhood? Solas would surely be the First, and Mahanon would remain a hunter. It is difficult for him to imagine Solas at the dalish camp, he doesn't know why. What kind of vallaslin would he have? What his marking would be like? Maybe one day Mahanon would be able to see it.

He tries to imagine this peaceful life, lying in bed late at night. The mark on his hand pulsates with a greenish glow, but this time it doesn't hurt. Since Solas began to come into his dreams, they have been surprisingly calm.

During their next mission, for the first time notices how easy it is to pull a bowstring when magic shields his back. After the battle, they, exhausted, set up camp, and after two bowls of soup Mahanon goes straight to the small stream. It flows into a lake — seemingly small — but there is enough depth to the waist.

He hears Sera's laughter and the tinkling of a pot from the side of the camp. Mahanon grins. Closing his eyes, he can imagine the smell of wool and the creaking of aravels in the wind.

The water in the lake is cold, as he thought, and for some time Mahanon doubts whether it is worthwhile to go into it. Then he quickly pulls off his armor. He enters the lake only waist-deep, but it is enough for his skin from the lower back to the back of his head to cover with goosebumps. For a while he just stands there, then he begins to violently rub his shoulders and chest.

If he closes his eyes, the fuss in the camp almost reminds him of imaginary scenes in his head.

When Mahanon returns, he smells of lake water and cold. Sera demonstratively trembles and rubs her shoulders, Mahanon doesn't hear what she's saying — something about frozen icicles — but it's still funny.

Solas's sitting a little further from the fire, slowly eating his soup. Mahanon looks at him, and something in his chest flips over. The marking burns, as for the first time, and he almost bends in half from the sensation of small “k”, “e”, “y” on the skin.

“Boss?”

The Bull’s palm, warm and rough, rests on his shoulder.

Mahanon shakes his head. He feels an attentive gaze and bucks up.

“It's nothing.”

“It's all your soup, Iron Head,” Sera chuckles. “Just look at Inquie.”

Mahanon grins, listening to their bickering.

Slowly he feels better.

“I thought your hand didn't hurt anymore.”

Mahanon knew he'd come.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he replies, seeing no reason to hide anything.

Solas stands at the very edge of the lake, and, except for too obvious silence, nothing tells that they're in Fade. Mahanon looks at Solas' face from the side, prepared for other questions, but they don't come.

Suddenly almost childish curiosity awakens in him.

“When I was a child, the Keeper said that the markings were created by Elgar'nan.”

He falls silent, and Solas gives him an interested look.

“So that his children would never be alone. Do you believe this is true?“

For some reason it seems to Mahanon that Solas must know the answer to this question. Solas shakes his head:

“No.”

Mahanon doesn't have time to ask anything else, as Solas comes closer. Despite the fact that they're in Fade, Mahanon feels as if his chest is being burned with a hot coal.

“What is essentially a marking?” suddenly asks Solas, gently waving his hand.

Mahanon watches the movement of his long fingers as they draw a strange semicircle and stop in front of his chest.

“A generous gift?”

The half-smile with which Solas looks at him is so familiar that Mahanon's heart begins to beat inappropriately loudly.

“A punishment?”

Mahanon hears in these words an echo of unknown bitterness. Solas takes another step closer and puts his narrow palm where Mahanon's heart beats.

“Or a leash?”

Mahanon wakes up, the second time in his life the marking hurts so badly that he has to bury his forehead in pillows not to groan. He sees the pictures of Solas' face before his eyes, and it seems that he can still feel the warmth of his palm on his chest. Where the heart beats. Where his marking is.

At once Mahanon recalls all the dark nights at the dalish camp, all his doubts, all his loneliness and hidden envy, and almost whines from hopelessness.

“_Vhenan_,” he thinks. “Call me _vhenan_.”

***

Mahanon always thought that everything would be completely different. That he'll shoot the fastest deer, find the remains of an ancient city, lead the clan to the cleanest stream, and someone grateful will drink clear water from his hands.

But everything turned out so that he kneels in a puddle of muddy water and almost loses his mind from the simultaneous pain in his hand _and_ his heart.

Someone, it seems, is such a jokester.

Solas leans over him, his hands are cold, as after a mountain stream.

“So what?” Mahanon asks. “Is it a gift, a punishment, or a leash?”

Solas' face is distorted, and Mahanon eagerly absorbs this emotion. For a few seconds Mahanon strives to remember this short expression of confusion and the painful curve of his eyebrows before pain twists him again.

Solas' lips, dry and firm, take away his pain, his hand and his mark. Mahanon clenches his fingers on the fur of Solas' collar and before Solas rises, taking away the subtle smell of ambergris and dried cloves, forces out:

_“Var lath vir suledin.”_

For some time it is so quiet that Mahanon can hear his uneven breathing. Solas touches his chest with his fingers, _where the heart beats_, and shakes his head.

“I wish it could, _vhenan_.”


End file.
